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Recent experiences have driven me to start the journal I have planned for so long. Reason? Honestly, its a lonely job and its so easy to get lost in the conversations we constantly have with ourselves.
I would like to improve my trading by being more consistent... and you fellow trader, will be my guarding eye
The Method
It turned out pretty early that day trading is not for me (at least not yet). I am just the type who likes to give thing some time, sit back and analyze before I jump in. And the "jumping in" part is where I keep messing up over and over again... I am anticipating impulsive moves by counting Elliott waves and use a momentum indicator (Ultimate Oscillator) to time my entries. I m checking 3 different time frames: daily, H2 and M30. I took this from Alexander Elder and I can only recommend the triple screen technique.
Its more than a year since I started trading live, but I am still break even and cant move forward.
The experience shows that I anticipate trend changes most of the time well, but my entries are way to early, and the market keeps making few more highs or lows before it commits to the anticipated direction. This said, I sometimes use too tight stops... this mistake comes from the fact that I am trying to maximize the profit by having bigger positions and tighter stops (I know its not good but I have the urge to build up a bigger account since I am only trading with 5000 EUR).
Second problem are exits. After building up a decent position, the floating PL parallelizes me and I wait too long before taking profits and give back most of the cash. Maybe sometimes you should just grab the money and go instead of waiting for signals... (?)
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
This happened today, and this mistake is pretty much typical for me...
After a 3rd wave decline, we can see some corrective 4th wave forming now, which looks to be over soon. I have counted a triangle and entered after the price broke down after wave "e" (green arrow at attachment).
It proved to be incorrect as price keeps going higher...
Now lets wait and see what is happening.
UO works fine for me, I did some testing and turned to be the best tool to identify divergences. It has one shortcoming though: as it limits its period to 35 bars, after strong rallies it tends to break to oversold immediately. However its not difficult to get used to this, just interpret the signals in context.
Check this link if you would like to learn more from the tool (its from the maker himself):
DAX hit resistance at the upper triangle trend line, while forming a bearish divergence on UO. Looking for further downside acceleration and then I'm short.
After waking up, I saw my position got stopped out overnight. The textbook like patter is getting messy and I am loosing enthusiasm again. Same thing happening over again... losing, than going back to break even with hard work.
Totally frustrating. Its probably the hurry to get my small account bigger that gets me into trouble.
your urge to grow your account is surely a problem but it may not be the only one.
I tried to use eliott waves back in the days and I think it's really hard to have an edge trading with it as it is far too subjective and tends to make you have an analyst's mindset more than a trader's one.
I mean by that that most wavers try to predict what market will do while as a trader you should just look for tradable set ups.
EW can give you set ups but you have to be very selective with it from my experience.
Thanks for your comment! Yes, with Elliott waves it kind of difficult not to try to do predictions this is a habit Im trying to get rid of. Btw my approach is simple trend following and the waves just give me the hints when a trend is likely to end or start. Maybe I just have to give more time for the trend to evolve and not jump in too early... EW as a set up tool can be really effective sometimes.